O8O8OO8O8O8O88O8O8O8
No matter what colour they painted it, hospital waiting rooms could never disguise what they really were. Containment units for grief and pain.
Pain over what was unknown. Pain over what was discovered. Pain over what was found. Pain over what had been lost.
This one was pale green.
Two separate groups of people sat there, clustered close together, one on each end of the windowless square room.
On the back of the room, there was a man with Mexican features with two teenaged girls. The traces of family resemblance were clear between them. They were all holding hands, hard enough to cut blood circulation. Occasionally the man would lift his red rimmed eyes off the floor and look at the watch, hanging outside on the hall. The girls were quietly sobbing.
When the group of detectives arrived, they had sat the farthest away they could, out of respect. They didn't want to intrude in to that family's pain.
Minutes after, a man in green scrubs entered the room. It was as if royalty had arrived. Everyone jumped out of their seats, anxious to know if the arriving news would be for them.
"Mr. Rodriguez?"
The detectives sat back on their plastic seats, watching as the Mexican man and the man in scrubs talked in hushed tones. The conversation was short, ending with the medic offering a sympathetic hand on Rodriguez' sobbing shoulder before turning away and leaving.
The man returned to the girls' side, the smile on his lips contrasting with the tears running down his face. "Ella está bien," they heard him whisper in to the girls necks as he hugged them close, "todo está bien."
There was no need for a translation. That family's waiting game had paid off. The detectives hopped that theirs would to.
8O8O8O8O88O8O8O88O
Mac could not remember a day in his career when he'd hated his job. Until today.
He'd finally returned the call to his friend in the Bureau. Donauh had been the real deal, but some of his actions over the last years had called the FBI's attention. They had been investigating him for some time now, trying to figure out what the man was doing. Mac had been the one informing them that they didn't need to worry about Donauh anymore. He'd been dealt with.
It had felt good to say the words, but the CSI knew that they were just words. An investigation still had to run. Donauh's list of victims was probably longer than the six he'd killed in NY.
Neither Mac nor anyone working close to Danny would be working on his case. Too much personal feelings, too many chances that they could lose perspective.
However, as head of CSI, it was within Mac's rights to oversee any piece of evidence being studied in his lab.
The contents of Donauh's handbag were displayed over the large table, being carefully analysed and documented by the team that had been assigned to the case. Mac had commandeered the video tape. He wanted to see what had happened.
He understood Flack's lack of faith now. It had been ugly.
Donauh was a hired hit man, and Danny had been one of his contracts. Nothing on that tape told him who had hired him, nor why he'd been hired. And the only who could tell them that was now dead.
When his cell phone rang and he saw Aiden's name on the monitor, Mac's heart jumped to his throat. There was always hope until the facts were laid out. Danny was alive and fighting until someone told him that they'd lost him.
The older detective raised the phone to his ear.
"Aiden?"
The four words she said back brought a smile to the man's face.
"He's gonna be ok."
8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O
There was something about churches and intensive care units that made people behave in a reverent manner, maybe because both places carried with them the undeniable truth about control. You had none.
Most believers went to church to negotiate, aware that fate couldn't be controlled. They offered their faith, they left with hope.
To anyone standing outside any ICU, watching loved ones struggle back to life, the same truth was made clear. After Man's medicine paid its tribute to keep death at bay, it was time for faith and fate to have their struggle.
The female surgeon that had come to talk to them, after spending five hours mending the damaged made by both bullets, had started by saying that detective Messer had been very, very lucky.
The fact that he had arrived with a mild case of hypothermia had saved him from going in to shock from blood lost; the fact that Flack had started CPR almost immediately after Danny's heart stopped, had saved him from almost certain brain damage.
Both rounds had been close range, but of small calibre, thus doing less damage on their way; one of the bullets had grazed the left side of his skull, but had failed to penetrate the bone. His left eye had suffered some collateral burn damage, but she was certain that it was minor enough not to cause any permanent trouble to his eyesight.
The second bullet had done the most damage. It had been a through-and-through, entering the right side of his lower abdomen and exiting on the back of his higher thigh, hitting mostly muscle on its way out. On its way in, however, the bullet had ruptured Danny's colon. The surgeon had spend most of her time inside the OR trying to keep that rupture from evolving in to massive septicemia.
She had done her stitching; now it was up to him to do the healing.
8O8O8O8O88O8O8O8O8O8
Mac walked through the aseptic green corridor in search of a familiar face. He recognized Stella's back, standing in front of a glass window.
The woman saw his refection on the glass and acknowledged his present with a slight nod of her head.
On the other side of the glass, the unit had only four beds, each surrounded by bleeping monitors and hissing tubes. Danny was on the second one.
There were three bags hanging over his bed, one red and two colourless, all looking like strange balloons, strapped to his arm. The bandage on his head covered all of his hair and part of his face, rending the young man unrecognizable. Mac had only guessed that it was him because Flack was seating next to that bed, a green disposable coat over his blue scrubs.
"How's he doing?" He asked.
"Sleeping off the anaesthesia," Stella replied. "Doctors said he should be waking in an hour or two."
"Aiden?"
"Went to get a cup of coffee."
Mac nodded absentmindedly. Inside the room, Flack's head nodded towards his chest, his eyes closed in sleep. It had been a long night for all of them.
"He believes we're dead," Mac said, cutting through the quiet hospital noise.
Stella's gaze left the window to land on him.
"What are you talking about?"
"Donauh filmed Danny, it was part of his contract's deal," Mac explained. "I saw the tape. We were the bargaining chip he was using to get Danny to do what he wanted. Danny fought back and Donauh detonated the bomb."
Stella inhale sharply. She knew that Mac's generic report was leaving much from being said, but she would get the fine details later.
"I'm guessing this happened sometime after the jamming device was activated, because the bomb didn't go off," Mac went on, turning from her to look at the unconscious men on the other side. "Only Danny and Donauh had no way of knowing that. The TV set he's been using to monitor us was broken by that time."
"Then he's in for a surprise when he wakes up," Aiden's voice came from behind them, her words smelling of hot coffee. They hadn't heard her coming. "We just need to make sure we're there when that happens."
8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8O8
Final chapter's coming closer... stay tunned :)